31 Days: Creative Habit – Day 26: Mining for Gold

Apparently “Memory” is my theme this week. I chuckled when I opened Chapter 4 of Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit today and found the title to be “Harness Your Memory”. In it, she talks about mining your memories for inspiration, and about how metaphor (“connecting what we’re experiencing now with that we have experienced before”) is key to art.

This chapter is so good – I underlined huge chunks of it to go back and read again and again.

One part that was interesting was when she referenced her “coin exercise”. I looked ahead a few chapters to find out what it is – moving coins around on a table until you reach an arrangement that is just “right”.

This is exactly how I work on a necklace. I cut apart a vintage strand and play with the pieces until they are just as they should be.

I know when it’s “just right”.

One of the exercises at the end of Chapter 4 is about using old photographs to mine for memories. I dug through all the old photos I have, and the pickens were slim – most photos of me as a child are still at my Mom’s house.

But I did find this gem. So far, what I’ve mined is that my eclectic fashion sense has always been a part of me. Check out my pink pleather jacket and sweet rainbow and horse (unicorn?) Myrtle Beach t-shirt. Where was this taken? Yeah, in a tent. I’m wearing pink pleather at Girl Scout camp. When I showed the photo to Husband, who has camped with me many times, he just nodded knowingly.

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This post is part of a 31 day series. Find all the posts in this series here.